Most people ask for happiness on condition. Happiness can only be felt if you don't set any condition.

When I sit in Paris in a cafe, surrounded by people, I don't sit casually -- I go over a certain sonata in my head and discover new things all the time.

Of course there is no formula for success, except perhaps an unconditional acceptance of life, and what it brings.

Of course there is no formula for success except perhaps, an unconditional acceptance of life and what it brings.

What good are vitamins? Eat a lobster, eat a pound of caviar -- live! If you are in love with a beautiful blonde with an empty face and no brains at all, don't be afraid. Marry her! Live!

Sometimes when I sit down to practice and there is no one else in the room, I have to stifle an impulse to ring for the elevator man and offer him money to come in and hear me.

Composing a concert is like composing a menu.... If you start with light pieces and play a 45-minute sonata after the interlude, it's like starting dinner with hors d'oeuvres and dessert and finishing with a Ch teaubriand and vegetables.

No formula for success exists except, perhaps, an unconditional acceptance of life and what it brings. I accept life unconditionally. Most people ask for happiness on condition. Happiness can only be felt if you don't set any condition.

I feel that special secret current between the public and me. I can hold them with one little note in the air, and they will not breathe. That is a great, great moment.

Life is the game that must be played, this truth at least, good friends, we know; so live and laugh, nor be dismayed as one by one the phantoms go.

I'm passionately involved in life: I love its change, its color, its movement. To be alive, to be able to see, to walk, to have houses, music, paintings -- it's all a miracle.

I'm a free person; I feel terribly free. They could put me in chains and I still would be free because my thoughts would be mine -- and that's all I want to have.

The result was magnificent ... I became the father of two girls and two boys, lovely children by good fortune they all look like my wife.

Music is not a hobby, not even a passion with me; music is me. I feel what people get out of me is this outlook on life, which comes out in my music. My music is the last expression of all that.

Yes, I am very lucky, but I have a little theory about this. I have noticed through experience and observation that providence, nature, God, or what I would call the power of creation seems to favor human beings who accept and love life unconditionally, and I am certainly one who does with all my heart.

Love life and life will love you back. Love people and they will love you back.

Never sound pompous. You always sound noble, noble. Absolute character of music is nobility. Even popular music can be noble, you see. If it's not noble, then it's not very good... Music is an art of emotion, of nobility, of dignity, of greatness, of love, of tenderness. All that must be brought out in music but never a show of pompousness.

It took great courage to ask a beautiful young woman to marry me. Believe me, it is easier to play the whole Petrushka on the piano.

To be alive, to be able to see, to walk, to have houses, music, paintings -- it's all a miracle. I have adopted the technique of living life miracle to miracle.

The seasons are what a symphony ought to be: four perfect movements in harmony with each other.